I must warn you…I’m about to get creepy-intuitive…
You, dear reader…I can sense that you are likely intrigued by the idea of minimalism and living with less? Yes?
No, don’t be afraid by my near-psychic powers. It’s okay. Breath and look at the cute rabbit.
I also see…oh…this surprises me…that there is a good chance that reading about minimalism has inspired you not to live a minimalist life, but to live the same life you always have, with maybe a better work ethic regarding household chores and your e-mail inbox? Maybe you even took up yoga?
Well, I have to tell you…
Minimalism is not about trendy domestic zen!
Minimalism isn’t a way to keep tidy.
Minimalism is ruthless prioritizing.
Everybody’s reason and way is different, but when it comes down to it, minimalism is about priorities and focus.
The maxim of own less is a tool to help you focus.
The maxim of do less is a tool to help you prioritize.
If you’ve been tinkering with the idea of living a minimalist life, or are intrigued but don’t know where to start…here it is…
Your First Step Toward a Minimalist Life:
Reset Your Priorities List.
Make It Small.
Mean It.
This is the beginning. Everything else follows.
Reset.
Throw away your old priorities list. Start your list on a new piece of paper.
Priorities change. Goals are accomplished, forgotten, and alter. Don’t let something that was important to you a year ago dictate what’s important to you today.
Don’t hold onto priorities for sentimental reasons, guilt, or pride. If you bought a guitar last year, thinking it’d be really cool to play…but haven’t…don’t be afraid to call it quits. Nobody is judging you for it, and the sooner you get rid of that out-of-tune guitar the sooner you can stop feeling guilty about still struggling with an F chord.
Your priorities should be where you’re at now. They should be what you’re excited about now. Not what you can do in a year—what you can do tonight. Actually…why are you reading this? Go work on something massively important to you right now.
…
If you don’t have anything massively important, then keep reading, because that’s what we’re working on.
Make It Small.
Pick 2, 3, or 4 things. Only pick what’s important to you, and know that everything else is incidental.
If you can’t pick just 3 or 4, write down your list of 30. Then scratch out half of them. If you were forced to choose, which would you save? Cut it in half again. Repeat until you have less than five things.
Those few things? That’s what’s important. Everything else? Not important.
Don’t let the 27 other things that aren’t important take your focus and energy from the 3 things that are important to you. You’ll never excel at 27 things…and you won’t excel at 3 things if you’re trying to excel at 27.
So drop them. They need to go. And it’s okay.
This isn’t a time to mourn the things you’re going to neglect. It’s a time to get really damn excited about the 2 or 3 things you’re going to devote tons of energy and time into!!
Mean It.
Try actually meaning it for once. Maybe you do. But if you’re anything like me—and I know I am [hehe]—for years I would make lists of things I wanted to do, but I never actually did them. If I spent every second practicing guitar that I spent writing about how I was going to practice guitar in diary goal lists, I…well I would have wasted less paper that’s for sure.
Some people have less obsessive tendencies than others. If you have obsessive tendencies, that’s awesome! If not, maybe you could nurture some?
Either way, these are your priorities. They aren’t set in stone. They’ll change in two months. But they are what you are doing today.
They are what you can work on tonight.
They are what you can get ridiculously excited about right now.
All that stuff about minimalism being decluttering? It’s true. But the most important thing you can declutter is your list of goals and priorities.
So ignore the heap of dirty laundry in your room. Don’t bother trying to clean out another drawer in your desk. Stop obsessing about how disorganized or organized your life is, and start obsessing over whatever it is that you keep claiming makes you really, really excited!
Focus on that, and only that. The compulsive decluttering, yoga, and stuff-tallying comes later ; )
] chloe [
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{ 27 comments }
I used to write long lists of all the things I wanted to do…only to discover some time later that I’d never done any of them. You’re so right. Once we’re clear on what we really really want, it’s easier to focus on that and actually achieve something!
Thanks for sharing.
Hehe. Long long long to-do lists are the best…I mean worst. They’re so fun and feel good while you make them…but yeah. I’ve never accomplished any of mine ;-P Thanks for writing Cristina!
Spot on! Minimalism is a true sea change in the mind. Getting your mind clear on your top priorities makes everything else fall into place, especially organizing one’s life and stuff.
I do think, however, that getting rid of stuff might help clarify the mind–it certainly did in my case. I did have the intense desire to be shut of the materialism that contributed to problems in my life, instigated the decluttering. It was in the midst of successful decluttering that further priorities gelled, because I then was able to think past the past, past the guilt of undone things on my life-long “long list.” But ultimately the minimalism was not about less stuff–less stuff was about the minimalism.
Hi Meg! I think you’re right. Getting rid of stuff certainly helps.
I love that line too! “Minimalism was not about less stuff – less stuff was about minimalism.” Awesome!
Chloe,
Great to hear you so inspired and fired up. : )
I like what you said about developing obsessive tendencies, it’s something I’ve been thinking a lot about recently and have realised we need to get obsessed, even if it’s in small bursts, if we’re going to create anything worthwhile in our lives.
What can I work on tonight? Brilliant question we can all asks ourselves daily.
By the way, what does the rabbit think about developing obsessive tendencies?
Dan, I don’t know what rabbits think, but this fellow human reader has been doing some research into issues of attention span and focus. Short bursts of obsession may indeed be the most natural way to work.
If you are interested, I read this article first:
http://lifehacker.com/5596964/how-to-rebuild-your-attention-span-and-focus
And that led me to this:
http://www.pomodorotechnique.com
I also took a class (through my workplace) based on Tony Schwartz’s book The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working. This, too, promoted single-focused work with true breaks in between.
That’s an awesome article Rachel – I like the idea of training your attention span. It’s something I’ve been wanting to do, but hadn’t heard anything about it. Thanks for the links!
Hey Dan! Oh I saw your article on obsession. Most of the things I’ve “accomplished” have been due to obsessions. I’m not very good at plodding through things.
I came across Prou and Loy yesterday…they were nibbling wild flowers, which they spend most of their time doing…chomp chomp then run to the next. I asked them what they thought of obsessions, and they didn’t answer. Just chomp chomp and ran to the next. I thought it was kindof rude to ignore me, so I asked them again a little more loudly what they thought of obsessions. I’m pretty sure they heard me because they flicked their ears the other way and dashed off to the next flower. Ah well ; )
As an incorrigible list-maker and fledgling minimalist, I really appreciate this advice! I’ve been trying to declutter of late by giving away 1,000 things I don’t need. But it’s good to remember that the whole point of my decluttering project is to free up TIME in my life to do the things I really want to. Thanks for the reminder!
Hehe. I totally understand the list-making Lena : ) they are SOOOOOO fun for me. And SOOOO useless for me! [At least most of the time.]
I really enjoyed this take, this fresh new perspective, on minimalism. Thank you for simplifying it for me to bite size! Thank you so much. The rabbit helps too but who am I kidding. Your writing is excellent. So glad I read this tonight – now where to start? …..
Oh thank you Farnoosh! I really appreciate that [even if it takes me 2 weeks to get back to you and say it!] I was on vacation without internet. It’s a good excuse : )
I have lists and lists of things I was planning to do last week, last month. The lists get longer too as I have to carry over the undone things onto the next list. Lately my head feels like it’s spinning with all these different things that I need to do or want to do. It’s hard to even pick a direction to go in. So, hmm where to cut back and what am I really excited about and really want to commit to? Not sure yet, but you bring up excellent points.
Yeah, it’s tough to pick and choose. So much seems so exciting! I’d really love to actually be able to do all that stuff I make lists of! One thing I’ve done is pick the easiest or hardest things and focused on those. The easiest ones are nice because you can do them in an evening or two…and they’re done. You get a good sense of accomplishment. The hardest ones [my most recent is learning a super difficult piano piece] are nice because you can pick one long term goal and have something to continually work on.
Great post Chloe….It reminds me of the song, “One step at a time.”
I used to feel really guilty about not accomplishing things.
Instead of focusing on nutrition, I kept track of my calories online. I literally memorized everything that went inside my mouth…It was a pain to keep track of, so I chucked it. That’s when I really started making changes. I no longer eat cheese which is a HUGE feat for me. I no longer crave Pizza which is a big deal. I also no longer drink coffee which is UBBER huge. The minute I stopped focusing on the “feel good” action that wasn’t really doing anything was the moment I started taking action.
Stopped eating cheese?! What sort of wizardry is this Carolina?! hehe. That’s impressive.
I think Leo wrote a post recently on mnmlist about how we create guilt and dissatisfaction for ourselves around not “accomplishing” things. Our needs and goals are manufactured…not important until we make them so.
I love your definition of minimalism: ruthless prioritizing. Ruthless is a great word!
“Don’t hold onto priorities for sentimental reasons, guilt, or pride.” Very inspirational.
Also, I really groove on what you, Cristina and The Tiny Homestead were saying about very long lists. I have a bad habit of making long lists and accomplishing between 1/8 and 1/2 of it. Most nights I would go to sleep disappointed with myself that I didn’t accomplish so many things that I had set out to do. Recently, I’ve limited myself to five things that I want to do in a day, and I have accomplished all of them. Feel better about it, and those things are the most important ones that tended to get looked over otherwise on long lists.
Thank you. That’s awesome Mickey! It sounds like you’re super motivated…I feel like I “accomplish” 2 or 3 things a day. Maybe I could shoot for 4 or 5…but free-time is such a good time ; )
Either way, maybe I could take a cue from you and start to list my few things each morning to keep myself accountable.
To me, decluttering and getting rid of stuff is important, especially for new minimalists because we as humans are only capable of using our focus to so many things. So by getting rid of what’s not important, then we can focus on what is.
I like how passionate you are about finding out what’s important and I think that’s spot on. It’s really important to find out whats important to us and going after it to have something to focus on. I’m slowly trying to answer those big questions currently about how do I want to make the world a better place — not always easy though!
Not easy at all, Reggie. You’re totally right – decluttering and getting rid of stuff is super important and a valuable step. I just like to remind myself that it’s the means, not the end. It sounds like you’re tackling some big questions…and inspiring ones.
Ditto! When I keep on simplifying and decluttering my stuff, I realised that the best way to simplify or minimise part of our life is to start on a clean slate.
And the best way to do that is to reset.
So true KC. Sometimes I fantasize about losing all my stuff and getting to start over from scratch : )
Damn you Chloe my self esteem was feeling great after all the cleaning and organizing i’ve been doing at home!
Hahaha. NOOOOO! You totally get to feel great about that!
Well done! *applause*
Now go do something big ; )
This is a great post! Many of us were taught we had to be super productive and that meant doing everything. The problem is we are too spread out and unfocused. It is so good to take a little time and decide what is important. Nice work.
Thank you Erin!
I don’t even see super-productivity as desirable. Maybe I’m wrong, but recently I’ve been living the only-as-productive-as-I-have-to-be way…someday I might try to “do” more, but for now my priorities aren’t so accomplishment-focused. I guess it depends on how you define accomplishment though.
Thank you for this… I just wrote out a list of the things that pop into my head, and it was a very good small list. Then a few minutes later I almost went back and added more things, but caught myself. I am a chronic to-do list writer, but I’m learning.
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